


Pain perdu

by deepandlovelydark



Series: Second Chances [15]
Category: MacGyver (TV 1985)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Gun Violence, Starvation, Whump, did I say whump?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2017-12-28
Packaged: 2019-02-23 06:01:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13183851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark
Summary: Everyone has a breaking point; but most people like to think theirs would be dramatic. Riches galore, power over others, knowledge most secret.But sometimes, it isn't that Faustian.Sometimes, all it takes is a plate of French toast.





	Pain perdu

Mac's never much liked the coffee shop; but these days it's absolutely maddening. 

Rich, tasty fragrances, chocolate and coffee and vanilla. Small talk, fresh baked muffins, the expressive bubbling of the coffee maker, all so friendly and nice and so forth, while underneath he's hurting with hunger and so tired he doesn't know how he's getting by. 

Not that he really have a choice. The shop's what lets him look after Becky; he's managed somehow to make sure she's always properly fed, even if he has to cheat himself at breakfast and skip lunch. He'll miss having her around when she starts school tomorrow, but that free lunch is going to be such a weight off his mind. A rather selfish part of him is hoping that she'll bring home an apple or something, once in a while. Not that he'd ask.

Sighing, he reheats a cup of yesterday's unwanted coffee and adds plenty of sugar- the taste's terrible, but the caffeine will do him good and these days he's too famished to toss out anything with calories. Starts fixing up brunch for Becky: a couple of day-old brownies from the shop, some scrambled egg and radish from what's left of their garden (not much, considering how badly it's been mauled by rabbits this year). Floppy slices of white bread, for the inevitable French toast. That should be enough for her until tonight, when he can slip down to the church pantry and get a few more days worth of groceries. Accepting charity is its own kind of humiliation, but he'll do anything for his niece. Anything.

Frying oil, maple syrup. The coffee hasn't done much to quiet the growling noises his stomach insists on making; desperate, he pulls on an extra flannel shirt and refills his cup with water from the tap. At least that'll stop him feeling quite so hollow. 

This isn't working, this isn't working at all. He needs to sit down and think up a plan. Get them out of this, somehow. 

If he could just think of something besides how damn hungry he is. 

*****************

There were three slices in the breadbox last night; she'd checked. Now there's three slices of French toast on her plate.

Becky looks at it glumly. She's got really sick of this stuff, lately, but any other way of eating white bread tastes worse. And Uncle Mac's doing the best he can for her, after all.

 _Having nightmares,_ a worried part of her mind whispers. _Going without, because you're here._

She'd wanted to come to him so much, after the accident; but now it just feels like she's making everything worse. 

"Well, don't let it get cold or anything." He slams a pan noisily into the sink, and drops into a chair. 

"Why don't you have a slice?"

It's not the first time she's said that, and Mac gets even more annoyed than usual. "Because I had something earlier. So please, will you eat it and not complain?"

He wouldn't lie to her, but she has a pretty good idea that "earlier" means supper last night, and he'd barely eaten anything then. There's plenty of food right here; but it's for her, so he won't touch it.

She's going to have to trick him into it. 

"All right, I won't complain! I'm just not going to eat it, that's all!"

There's a momentary look of longing in his eyes, before he gets control of himself. "Becky. You're a growing girl, you've got to have something-"

"You can't make me!" Becky shouts. It isn't nearly as hard as she'd have thought, with all her pent-up fear for him to fuel it. "I'm sick of French toast, and I'm sick of Minnesota, and if I don't want to eat any of this awful stuff today, then that's my problem!"

She runs for it then, before he can do anything. Runs to her room and locks the door on him. Will he guess the truth? That she's being self-sacrificing, not petulant?

If he does, he'll probably get really mad. And then force her to eat it anyway.

_Please, Uncle Mac. Please, please, please just think I'm being useless and ungrateful. You need that breakfast so much._

It's weird, hoping this hard that he'll be disappointed in her. 

*******************

He knows what he needs to do. Go and retrieve Becky, get breakfast into her like a young teenager needs. 

Even gets off the chair, a little too quickly; he collapses right back into it with a wince. Faint and giddy. And there's a whole plate, right in front of him. Full of crisp golden egg-laden toast, hot and buttered and syrup-laden. 

He could stop himself. He just chooses not to. 

*******************

It's getting on for three. Her sewing bag's in the other room, she's read about all she can stand for today, and she's starting to get sort of hungry. Not enough to regret doing what she did, but- maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad idea to have pocketed one of those brownies, before getting stroppy. 

Oh well. What's done, is done. 

Footsteps in the next room. Uncle Mac must be back from wherever he'd got to. She steels herself. Whatever punishment he thinks appropriate, she'll just have to take in stride. 

Knock, knock. "Becky?"

He doesn't sound upset. He sounds calm, and a little amused. Perfectly sane. ( _Becky, what else would he be?_ )

She opens the door, tentatively. "Unc, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

"It's okay. Don't worry about it, I don't blame you one bit. But d'you think you could help me with something?"

"Anything." 

Mac grins, and hands her twenty bucks. "Want to go down to the grocery store? Pick up anything you like. I'd go with you, but the thing is, I've got this deer I have to finish dressing..."

"Oh- Uncle Mac, that's illegal! It isn't even hunting season yet!"

She remembers that smile very well in later years. "Too late now, and anyway it was Sergeant Olson who let me borrow the rifle. I tried to give him a doe in compensation, but he insisted on paying me a fair rate for it...course, it's just as well he did. Plain venison would get dull real quick."

Becky stares at him. "But you hate guns."

"Yeah. But it turned out there was something I hated even more, and that was not being able to take care of you. I need to make sure you're okay, Becky. Whatever that takes."

Utterly at a loss for words, she just hugs him. Smells the faint scent of gunpowder, clinging to his shirt. Blood, and worse. 

Her own sweet and gentle storyteller- what's she done to him?

"I didn't mean for you to do anything like this," she whispers. "I didn't."

"I know," he says. Distantly amused, even though he's hugging her back. "Guess I got pretty desperate, after finishing your breakfast. But for the first time in weeks I was clear-headed enough to think up a plan- maybe it wasn't the best one, but I was in a hurry." He lets go, nods at her to follow him down the stairs. "This is gonna be interesting, trying to butcher it. I haven't been anywhere near a deer since Harry was showing me the ropes as an eight-year old."

"You know, Ellen ran me through the whole process a couple years ago. You weren't there, it was that time you'd taken Chris out on a camping trip."

"She always used to go hunting behind my back," Mac says grumpily. "Like she was ashamed to admit it to me, or something...okay, new plan. We'll both do it. But you go down to the grocery and get some belated breakfast first, all right?"

"Okay." She needs time to think this over, anyway. 

Everything's worked out. They'll have food for a few more weeks. He's calm and fed, and that frightened look of his has vanished. The one when he was wondering whether he'd have to let her go, the one that scared her. She ought to be glad it's gone. 

_So why does this still feel so wrong?_

"Becky," he says gently, ruffling her hair. "Stop worrying. That's my job."

She stops herself saying anything, just in time. Today he needs a Becky who's relieved and unquestioning and grateful. Someone who'll justify the sacrifices he's made for her with so much pain and effort. 

She'll be that for him, then. 

It's really the least she can do.


End file.
